In the world of online marketing, the rule is that content is king.
And it’s true!
What too few marketing professionals working day-to-day to promote their business appreciate is that content creation for business actually generates brand equity; information assets that can be converted into cash.
According to Aberdeen, the majority of companies (62%) use content creation for business development: primarily lead generation or customer acquisition. 27% percent use content to build brand awareness and 11 % use content creation for business retention. In fact, the right content fulfills all of these functions simultaneously; it helps define and differentiate the brand at the same time as it generates leads and promotes customer loyalty.
Content Creation Defines your Brand
- The actual process of content creation creates brand equity. Content creation for business is a collaborative effort that involves different parts of the organization – marketing, sales, senior management, even IT and other departments. Gathering the corporate tribe together to agree on a common message that defines the company and distills the message into concrete differentiators can be a galvanizing exercise.
- It forces everyone involved in the process to consider the company’s value to its customers and their individual role in creating that value.
- Creating content keeps you hyper-focused on your clients. One of the reasons corporate blogging is such a valuable marketing tool isn’t just for the fresh content that it generates. Every time you write a blog you have to ask yourself, “Is this relevant to my customers?”
- This keeps you dwelling in your client’s mind, considering their pain points and crafting creative content to solve their dilemmas.
- Content becomes corporate currency that you spend with prospects and customers. You give them information that has value in exchange for their time and attention, and permission to give them more information. The intellectual property that is your content has value because it provides insight at the same time it represents your company’s expertise and value proposition. That’s content with equity value.
Recycling Content to Build Value
Another way to build value with your content is to make the most of your content equity. A good story should never be wasted. If you have gone to the trouble of developing a storyline that defines your brand value at the same time it provides thought leadership to your industry, reuse it.
When developing new content, consider the possibilities for its use. What may start as a blog post can become an infographic, a contributed article, a SlideShare presentation, a video, or even a speaking opportunity. Spend your content currency in different places to maximize your brand exposure and increase your brand equity.
Most online marketing programs choose one of two vehicles to drive leads back to a landing page where visitors get some content of value, such as a white paper or case study, in exchange for their email address. The Web has many strands, and the more types of content with the same message that you can seed in different locations, the better your results.
Remember that all content creation for business has a measurable return on investment (ROI); sometimes the metrics are leads or sales, other times they are in brand visibility and generating web traffic to promote awareness.
Maintaining the Value of Content Assets
If you think of content creation in terms of brand equity, then to maintain its value you have to nurture that content so it will continue to yield dividends. Think of content creation for business as a product or service that needs to be evaluated and improved:
- Content creation adds company value – Whether revenue is up or down the value of content endures, and you can invest in content to promote a higher return, even when you are cutting costs.
- Content has intrinsic value – Content is an asset, and it has to be considered an asset that can be used to help generate revenue.
- Content needs to be maintained – Creating content for business and then letting it depreciate reduces its value. Instead, keep the content fresh with updated messages and information.
- Content needs to be used strategically – Like any asset, content should not be squandered. Consider the objectives and potential ROI beforehand so you use your content to its best purpose.
- Content is a renewable resource – Content is inexhaustible and can be reused in various forms to generate different types of return. Repackage your content as often as possible.
A curious thing about content creation for business is that the more you use the content, the more its value increases.
The quality of the content defines its initial value. If you have insightful information that helps your readers, that content has high value. And you can increase brand equity by using that content to inform and persuade prospects and delight your customers. The more you use your content effectively, the more brand and content equity you accumulate.
Ready to get started creating remarkable content and building your brand’s equity? Contact us or download this free guide to getting your inbound marketing campaign up and running!
